I found my architectural voice in the collaborative creativity of the theatre, says Pippa Nissen
It was the early 1990s and I was studying for an MA in Theatre Design at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. After the academically-driven environment of my architecture degree at Cambridge, I was struggling with the freedom of an arts school. Then one day my tutor said “express yourself” and I realised that I needed to find my own artistic language. At the time, I was sitting as a model for one of the painting tutors at the Slade, Euan Uglow. During our sessions he often encouraged me to study the work of artists he thought were relevant and then quizzed me about them. And here was my sticking point. How do I truly express myself when there is no problem to solve other than replicating other people’s ideas?
Then came an experience that changed everything. Through the Slade, I was given the opportunity to work as an assistant on a trailbazing production of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Footfalls’ at the Garrick Theatre. It was designed by Hildegard Bechtler, directed by Deborah Warner, and starred Fiona Shaw. Working with three uncompromising women was inspiring. In all my previous experience in architecture, I had worked for men in environments where my quiet but quirky voice was not always appreciated. Suddenly I found myself in a situation where being a woman was not only OK, it was celebrated.
For ‘The Way to the Sea’, a 2010 commission for the Aldeburgh Festival, Nissen Richards designed a series of installations in the landscape, with the audience moving between musical perfomances, mingling with actors. “Our work today very much comes from my experience of ‘Footfalls’, and the rethinking of the usual theatrical experience”, says Pippa Nissen (phs: Tom Merrell).
The biggest inspiration was the way they dissected the work and reinvented it with a spatial language that respected its history, at the same time as it pushed boundaries. Warner talked about being a cypher of the work and the actors that she worked with, enabling the performance to deliver an emotional truth. It was liberating to see how she and Bechtler interacted. Here were two women who worked in ways that really appealed to my way of thinking; it seemed academic and intuitive at the same time.
Rehearsals were incredibly serious and respectful: no talking, and no interruptions. As a designer, Hildegard was then reinventing through research, creating a complex web of narrative counter stories that threaded through the theatre. From the moment the audience entered the theatre, they were taken by surprise. We painstakingly created characters that inhabited the building and created moments where they stopped – dropped a possession, put down their hat, paused. The audience sat on the stage, and the action happened around the theatre.
During rehearsals, we developed a visual language with multiple layers of meaning that had to be unravelled by each person coming to see the play. This visually rich language about people and characters really spoke to me. It was the start of a life-long fascination with a type of experience where subtle cues become components of a performance that each individual makes themselves. In this moment, I found a way of working that legitimised my approach to the arts. You had to surrender to the process and out of debate and detail, create something absolutely fresh each time. Both Warner and Bechtler were fully involved in the process, rather than the designer simply responding to the director’s approach. The two collaborated, trusted each other and had a respectful way in which they found the right direction.
Creative collaboration is an essential element of how we work as a practice today. With the benefit of a range of creative skills, we can deliver something original and beautiful – but it needs a commitment to finding a new truth in each subject.
